Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2

One of Nintendo's finest 2D platformers makes a return to the scene on the Game Boy Advance.

When the Game Boy Advance shipped to stores back in June 2001, Nintendo shipped Super Mario Advance, a conversion of the publicly least-favorite Super Mario Bros. 2 NES game, as its flagship title. Nintendo's always sent Mario (or a Mario character) to kick off a system launch, but this was the first time the company "rehashed" an existing Mario title for a new system's release. For Mario's second platform adventure on the GBA, the company again dips into its Mario reserve...but this time the company produces a handheld version of one of, if not the finest Super Mario 2D platform ever created: Super Mario World, originally produced on the Super NES. And while we're still a bit irked that Nintendo isn't exactly prioritizing the GBA for an original Mario adventure, at least the company hands over a whopper of a design for play on the Game Boy Advance while we wait for one specific to the handheld.

Features

96 levels

Play as Mario or Luigi

Battery Save (three slots)

Link cable play for four players (single and multicartridge support)

Only for Game Boy Advance Super Mario World made its debut in the US more than a decade ago on the Super NES. It was, believe it or not, a pack-in title when games were still being packed-in with systems. The game was obviously produced to show off the Super NES' outstanding hardware abilities, and how far we've come since the 8-bit days of the NES system. The game put the SNES' full color palette, rich stereo sound, and hardware scaling and rotation to excellent use throughout the 96 levels of pure Mario action...and what's more, Super Mario World's level and gameplay design put to use some incredibly innovative ideas for the platformer genre. Nintendo's game designers had a tough act to follow after Super Mario Bros. 3 on the original NES, that's for sure...but the team succeeded with flying colors.

In the game, Princess Peach gets kidnapped (again) while the Marios live it up in Dinosaur Island...seems our good pal Bowser is up to his tricks again, and he's brought along a bunch of henchmen along to keep the Mario Brothers from rescuing the Princess and rescuing the trapped Yoshis. The Game Boy Advance conversion, Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2, is just as much a testament to how the original's classic gameplay can hold up to today's standards as it is a testament to how well the GBA can simulate SNES development. The game, even in portable form, retains the exact same look and feel of the Super NES original, from the graphics and sound, to the clever use of hardware special effects...and with all this in place it's still a brilliant platformer more than ten years later. Levels are creatively laid out to utilize all of Mario's special abilities: the classic Super Mushroom makes the plumber big, a Fire Flower gives him the ability to shoot fireballs from his fingertips, and a Cape lets the guy pull off his Superman imitation by giving him flight capabilities...but he needs a running start to get it going. Levels don't stray too far from the established Mario formula, as levels cut through the familiar standard, water, ice, lava, and castle levels...but it's what the game designers do in these areas that make the game so clever and fun to play. Mario will even have to cling to mesh fences, both in the foreground and background, to get across certain areas. Many levels even have hidden exits which sprout up alternate paths to different areas on the map, and this increases the replay value something fierce because, to see everything, you'll need to find that hidden keyhole.

The biggest addition to the Mario gameplay, though, is the introduction of Yoshi to the gameplay. By hatching an egg, you can ride on the back of the dinosaur, using his big feet to stomp on previously hazardous enemies, or his tongue to swallow smaller bad guys. And if you unlock the special Star Road levels, you can gain access to the different colored Yoshis, each having their own special abilities after eating Koopas.

The GBA version even adds a little bit to the mix by including Luigi to the gameplay. It's obvious that the GBA developers simply lifted his sprite data out of the original Super Mario Advance title, tweaked it a bit, and plopped it into Super Mario World -- his inclusion isn't exactly mindblowing, and his control is very similar to Super Mario Advance's...all kicky and wobbly, but at least he gets higher and longer distance in a jump. The GBA game also records your progress throughout the game, jotting down which character completed which part of a level, as well as whether or not you've found all five of the Dragon Coins scattered in each level. The difficulty has been brought down a notch for the portable adventure, though, as taking a hit if you're powered up with a flower or cape will only knock you down to Super Mario status...not all the way down to shrunken Mario like the SNES game. And, of course, Nintendo added a little more flair by moving the exact same Mario and Luigi voice samples from Super Mario Advance to this game.